Aaron Lockett: ‘The Colliers’ Champion’

John Taylor

“The inhabitants of Bignall End and
district are proud of the quality of many of their sons who have achieved
distinction in the world of sport; but it is probable that their particular
pride is vested in Aaron Lockett, who of a surety is the best all round
cricketer that the district in which he especially operates has produced.
He is also a footballer of no mean ability... though his undoubted promise has
never blossomed with full realization when mingling with highly paid
professionals.”

So wrote a reporter in a faded copy of an unknown newspaper
c1920 which forms just one small item in a library of old cuttings and
photographs spanning the 1920s to the 1960s, many of them undated and yellowing
with age. They make interesting, if wordy, reading, which contrasts with
the short, sensational tabloids of today. They report on games of league
and county cricket of an age far removed from the helmeted faces and histrionics
of the modern game. From them emerges the story of a self-made sportsman
who never received an hour’s coaching in his sporting life and who worked in the
mines for the whole of his working life. He had, however, a natural
aptitude for, and love of, all games - cricket in particular.

Aaron Lockett was born in Audley on 1st December, 1892.
The local elementary schools provided no facilities for cricket when he was a
scholar and he and the village boys would have played on any waste ground as
could provide a “pitch”. A small but sturdily-built lad, he played with
Audley in 1907, before moving to Bignall End in 1909, probably to improve his
cricket, but possibly, as Arthur Burgess suggests in History of Bignall End
C.C., for “romantic reasons”. In his first match with his new club, he
made 82 for the second team and was promptly promoted to the first eleven.
His next eleven seasons, until 1920, were of mounting success, topping the
club’s batting averages six times and bowling averages seven times.

During these years the winter seasons found him active on the
football field. He had played locally with Wereton Q.P. and Kidsgrove
Wellington before joining Port Vale, making his debut and scoring against Oldham
Athletic reserves in February 1915. During that season he made frequent
appearances, but joined Audley when, due to the war, Port Vale went into
abeyance. He rejoined them in 1917 before moving to Stoke City and
Stafford Rangers. In all he made thirty-four appearances for Port Vale in
various competitions and scored 14 goals.

His matches with Stoke are listed as being as a “guest”
player. Appearing at inside right in 1917/18, together with another Audley
footballer, Jack Maddock, he scored a total of five goals. Twelve
appearances during the following season brought six goals, including a hat trick
and two goals against Port Vale. He was a member of the Stoke team which
were champions of the Lancashire Section of the Football League and was the
recipient of quite a handsome medal.

The end of his football career coincided with his first
professional cricket engagement when, in 1920, he signed for Lidgett Green in
the Bradford League. During that season he took fifty wickets, but a night
shift at the pit followed by a match in Yorkshire, returning to Stoke station
and then to Bignall End proved too much, and 1921 saw him playing with Congleton
as an amateur, local rules forbidding his immediate return to Bignall End.

The years 1922-26 were the golden years of Bignall End C.C. -
runners up in 1922 and then champions for the next three successive years.
This wonderful achievement by the village cricket team was celebrated by a great
tea and concert in Ravens Lane school which merited two full columns of the
Weekly Sentinel broadsheet. The club president, Sir Francis Joseph,
presented the team with solid gold medals. He greeted the chief guest, Mr
Herbert Sutcliffe (Yorkshire and England), and said it was a splendid compliment
that he paid them in coming to that little out-of-the-way mining centre of
Bignall End. Detailed speeches are interspersed with “hear hear”,
“laughter”, “renewed laughter”, “applause”, and none more so than after a
spirited rendering of “For he’s a jolly good fellow” when Mr Sutcliffe rose to
speak. The evening’s enjoyment, however, was tempered somewhat when Sir
Francis announced that Aaron Lockett would be leaving Bignall End to become
professional with Old Hill in the Birmingham League.

From 1926 Aaron embarked with real earnest on a club
professional cricketing career, whilst still retaining his employment as a
fireman at Bignall Hill Collieries. A quick-witted reporter, obviously
intrigued by the name Aaron, sought a biblical reference and found in Numbers
chapter 1, verse 3, “Aaron shall number them”, a very apt quotation as the
following seasons’ hundreds of wickets and runs proved. In his fourth
match with Old Hill he took all ten wickets for fourteen runs, having at one
stage seven for none. For the next game,

There was a crowd of over 3000 at
Old Hill, no doubt in anticipation of seeing Lockett in action after last
Saturday’s exhibition. This time he finished with 6 for 24.

Newspaper cartoon, source unknown

In three seasons at Old Hill he took 199 wickets. A
change in league rules regarding the employment of professionals meant that they
had to live within a fixed radius of the club and as, Aaron still lived in
Bignall End, he left to join Oldham in the Central Lancashire League in 1929.

Newspaper cartoon, source unknown

It was at Oldham that he was to spend eleven seasons of great
exploits and great popularity as cutting after cutting shows. His
individual performances are far too numerous to list. Suffice it to say
that in eleven seasons he took 1069 wickets in total. In each of five
seasons he took over 100 and in five others over 90. A quarter of his
overs were maidens. “It has not been a case of outstanding performances
here and there, but a steady level of reliability, consistency and
determination”, reported the local press. His popularity is obvious and,
when the time came in 1939 for him to leave, there appears to have been quite an
emotional presentation to a “loyal, genuine, sincere professional”.
The local sports reporter commented that,

When he arrived at Oldham he was a
stranger in a strange land and said he was out to do his best for the club -
never has that seemingly simple undertaking been more honourably fulfilled -
Lockett’s best has been a very good best indeed.

Alongside his league cricket he played for Staffordshire and
the Minor Counties from 1919-39, taking 633 wickets, bowling 3,774 overs, of
which 1,052 were maidens. His bowling was described as,

Right arm medium pace, with a
command of good off spin and he can employ the leg break too, and always has a
quick ball up his sleeve. He has mastered the art of varying his pace and
has the brains to put into practice those things which his keen observation
tells him are called for.

Aaron himself described his bowling as “pretty fast off
spinners”. Although bowling was his forte he was, according to “Critic” of
the Staffordshire Advertiser,

A naturally aggressive batsman with
true eye and powerful muscles... crisp leg hitting and hard driving yield him
most of his runs. As a batsman he believes in defiance rather than
defence.

He described himself as, “Always willing to have a go.
Hard hitting, that’s what you’d call it.” Thus we read of innings like his
86 for Oldham v. Radcliffe, of which 60 were in boundaries. In 1922,
playing for Bignall End against Silverdale, he was carried off shoulder high
after hitting 61 in 20 minutes, thereby winning the match.

But his greatest innings was undoubtedly for the Minor
Counties against the West Indies at Exeter in 1928. There, he made 154
against Test Match fast bowlers Constantine and Griffith.

Lockett’s innings, though not
faultless, was an immensely brave one and contained some beautiful attacking
strokes that made the West Indies fast bowlers spread out their field.

Later that week his colleagues noticed that he was black and
blue - no helmets and body padding in those days!

The Second World War saw his return to his first love,
Bignall End, there to be captain until 1947, when he became an umpire in
first-class cricket for two years. He returned to playing until 1961,
spending the last five seasons as 2nd XI captain, as well as coach and mentor to
the youth team. After 55 years of competitive cricket, 38 of them at
Bignall End, he retired as a player at the age of 69. He rarely missed a
night at the club, whether it be to repair tackle or merely to savour the
atmosphere of cricket. The Sentinel noted that “His splendid service to
the club is maintained - he is almost a tradition.”

A final perusal of the numerous articles to look behind the
masses of statistics and performances reveals a genial, non-smoking,
non-drinking man of such dedication to the summer game that he made his garden
path into a concrete wicket for winter practice. In the words of two
Bignall End C.C. presidents he was,

A man who played seriously and never
suffered gladly frivolity on the field of play. (Arthur Burgess)

A fine cricketer, a splendid
sportsman, a real good friend to Bignall End C.C. One of nature’s
gentlemen. (Sir Francis Joseph)

Certainly the name of Aaron Lockett can be added to that
impressive list of men with mining backgrounds who have achieved distinction in
sport and who loved to perform in front of hundreds of people who, in the 1920s
and 1930s, spent their Saturdays watching their local heroes.

Sources

Various articles from Birmingham and Lancashire local
newspapers (Mrs Ivy Mayer Collection)